


Spun away all her sorrow and pain

by wearethewitches



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Black Character(s), Butterfly Effect, F/M, Gen, Near Death Experiences, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 09:02:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20207173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearethewitches/pseuds/wearethewitches
Summary: To get to the top, you have to fall over and over until you get it right. Reach!Melara Hetherspoon survives being pushed down the well.





	Spun away all her sorrow and pain

** CHAPTER ONE **

The water of the well is cold.

Melara Hetherspoon is a beautiful young girl – or so she’s been told. Her face is heart-shaped, her skin browned from generations of sun-kissed Naathan women and when she is dressed in finery, even Cersei admits she is exotically pretty. Down here in the well, those compliments mean nothing. _I will die here_, she thinks. Her own despondency feels brittle.

_She pushed me down here,_ Melara thinks, eyes stinging with tears. She hates Cersei – she hates, hates, _hates_ the girl she called friend. _Maggy the Toad was right: I die tonight._

Melara wonders if it’s true about drowning, that it’s peaceful. Perhaps, when she begins to fall asleep from the dreaded cold – from the chill spring water that drags at her silken dress and freezes her hundreds of silver bracelets – Melara will not wake up when the water pours into her lungs. _I want that, _Melara thinks. _I want to fall asleep first. Drowning is romanticised._

** _Climb._ **

Melara shoots up, spluttering briefly as she scrambles to keep herself afloat. The word makes her dizzy and her hands grasp at the dewy walls. **_Climb_**, the word rattles through her brain again. Melara finds the biggest gap in the stones she can find, the one she clung to those first few minutes after the rope snapped, trying to make sense of it.

The word is not of her own thoughts, that is clear. Neither does it come from above – the word does not echo or sound far away. If anything, the word sounds like someone is whispering in her ear- _shouting_ in her ear, even.

**_Reach_**, the voice insists – but no, it is not the voice of before. It is another, belonging to a woman. **_To get to the top, you have to fall over and over until you get it right. Reach!_**

An unearthly shiver runs across her back and Melara recalls her father, who spoke in that exact tone. It’s a command – a demand for obedience from someone who knows better. Her shiny bangles jangle as she reaches upwards, hand scrabbling against the stone. At the last moment, she finds a catch, but she doesn’t reach it, limbs falling back down. Melara drifts backwards into the water again and the first voice comes to her again – the man.

**_Climb_**, he says, voice quiet and almost, _almost_ kind. **_Climb until you reach the top._**

The woman speaks again. **_It doesn’t matter if you fall. Just get back up. Feel for the crevices, remember where they are and don’t forget._**

“Forget what?” Melara asks aloud, her throat swollen and scratched from screaming. Above her, the afternoon sun is waning. She imagines the evening in Casterly Rock, yellow-orange skies overhead as the sun dips below the horizon, the ever-flowing breeze rushing through the wide, open halls.

** _Who you are._ **

* * *

There is a shout from above. Melara’s fingers are raw and bloody, numb to all feeling. As she reaches up to the third-to-last crevice before she can grab the edge of the well, the shout gains clarity.

“_Melara! Lady Melara!_”

Her grip loosens, her whole body sagging in relief.

She falls.

It has happened so many times now that Melara hardly cares, controlling her fall to the bottom of the water before pushing up with her bare feet; she’s long since discarded her sandals, along with all her jewellery.

“_-was that? Lady Melara?_” Above, the poor light of the evening dulls, then flares from firelight as the next call of her name echoes down, down, down. Melara ignores the guard – for they have to be a guard, some young man or boy who calls excitedly for his fellows – and she climbs, _reaching._ She’s halfway up the well wall when a rope falls down beside her. Melara’s arms are strained – her muscles cramp in her legs.

**_Keep going_**, says the woman.

Melara climbs onwards. More voices echo down the well and she ignores them the best she can, eyes squeezing shut when the firelight increases, head shying away. She thinks it lucky that the torches catch her when she’s two thirds of the way, standing on the single stuck-out brick that remains from whence the builders made the source of liquid life available to the common folk.

“Lady Hetherspoon,” calls a familiar, rumbling voice. Melara hardly believes her ears when she hears the note of concern; surely, Tywin Lannister does not care a jot for her! It was Lady Joanna who took her in when her mother died, Mistress Hetherspoon one of her ladies in waiting.

“There’s a rope!” shouts another.

“Take the rope,” Lord Tywin commands her. Melara grasps the wall, instead. His concern is gone – and the voices in her head do not feel welcoming to her guardian.

**_He is not a good man_**, says the woman, before her voice hardens. **_Climb, Melara. Keep going._**

Melara’s breath shudders in her chest. She ignores the rope, eyes fixed on the places she knows she can grab. Tywin snaps at her once and Melara knows, for a split-second, that she will let go in fright; but it does not happen, a mistiness taking her awareness and holding on tight for three long seconds.

**_Hold on_**, the man warns her.

The mistiness fades and Melara feels her body weighing down, her grip crumbling. She almost leaps to the next handhold, fearing the fall now, in front of Lord Tywin and all his guards. Up and up – Melara misses a handhold and has to take another, when she’s mere metres from the top. Her eyes feel her guardian’s.

He watches her in silence.

Melara holds her lips firmly together, focusing on the well. _Not many more to go,_ she thinks purposefully, trying not to think of this as a test. What will the lord of House Lannister do when she reaches the top? What will become of Cersei, if she tells him? And what of the King – Aerys is still a guest in Casterly Rock. Would he order Cersei to be burnt to death? She is to marry Rhaegar – would he really do that to his future daughter-in-law?

In her mind, the two voices laugh. **_Married to Rhaegar!_** The woman exclaims faintly, as if it is something to be surprised about.

**_A crown and three golden shrouds_**, the man then says and once again, Melara’s grip falters. Only Lord Tywin’s blue-eyed gaze above her keeps her from falling again. **_You will not die here and she shall have none of those things to bear. Swear it._**

Up. Climb. Reach.

** _Swear it, Melara Hetherspoon. You will not die today._ **

“I will not die today,” Melara whispers.

** _And Cersei shall not have the throne._ **

Melara does not swear that aloud, not when she is reaching for the edge of the well and instead meets a hand, Lord Tywin taking her palm and wrist in his own and hauling her upwards. Melara drags against the well wall, over the low stone entrance – and in her mind, she thinks, _and Cersei shall have no throne, if I have anything to do with it._

**_You will_**, the woman says and her words are as much a promise as Melara’s.

Lord Tywin rests her against his chest like she is a small child, tugging her arms over his shoulders and standing from where he knelt. Melara feels her energy leave her, the pressure inside her chest to _live,_ to _climb_ finally fading.

“Well done,” Lord Tywin says, just to her. Melara sags into his warmth. It feels like a fire and all at once, she is glad that the wind did not reach down into the well, as if brushes her dress and chills her skin. “Someone give me their cloak!”

“Yes, milord!”

Something wraps around her shoulders: the cloak. She feels when they start moving, Lord Tywin’s long strides heavy and rhythmic. To no-one’s surprise – least of all Melara’s – she falls asleep, waking up in her bed in her nightgown with the fire roaring. The First Maester for Casterly Rock, Daeris, is wrapping linens around her abused hands.

She whimpers as the pain flares, Maester Daeris meeting her eyes and grunting in a _be calm_ manner.

“You survived your ordeal commendably. The frog-witch has been executed for her misdeeds already,” he tells her, nodding to himself. Melara’s eyes widen, but she listens to him as he prattles on. “Young Lady Cersei was quite beside herself when you were discovered. She wept and cried quite loudly for you, blaming the witch. Lord Tywin was not pleased to find out you visited her, oh no – but he sends his regards.”

“His regards?” Melara whispers, even as anger boils in her at the petty blonde _bitch_ who threw her down the well in the first place. She almost forgets the voices who carried her spirit, before the woman snarls.

** _Tell him the truth! Cersei should get what’s coming to her!_ **

However, no sooner does the woman finish that the man refutes her. **_No, the world is too unstable. It’ll ripple too far. There’s no way to know the outcome. We’re risking too much as it is. Melara – stay strong. Keep quiet._**

_Why?_ Melara asks him, even as Daeris prattles on about how Lord Tywin is to see the king this eve and that he has no time to sit by her bedside, her status as his ward not withstanding.

The man whispers to her. **_We are here to guide you, but we do not know you, Lady Hetherspoon. Gain our trust and we shall tell you why, eventually._**

_Why not now?_ Melara closes her eyes, feigning sleep. Daeris eventually stops talking, his words petering out. _Spirits within me, tell me: why not now?_

But the voices don’t reply.

* * *

Melara does not tell Daeris of Cersei and her lies. Nor does she tell Lord Tywin. Her hands and feet heal, though she has new scars and callouses to show for her troubles. Sewing and embroidering feel strange for a time, once she is allowed to use her fingers again.

It’s frighteningly easy to fall back in with Cersei, though.

In lessons, Melara finds herself teasing Jeyne Farman, snickering with Cersei behind her back. They share bright-eyed grins, full of mean-hearted fun and each and every time, it’s only a few minutes later that Melara realises what has just happened. Their comradery is still there, despite how Melara freezes at the sight of long, Lannister-blonde hair at Cersei’s head-height.

Cersei is not to be Rhaegar’s bride, thankfully. She thinks her Voices are satisfied with that, until they disagree – their purpose for saving her is a mystery and Melara goes to the cliff caves when she is awfully troubled by it all, a nervous duo of guards on her tail. She climbs the caves walls, hanging off the ceilings with a single hand and scaring the living daylights out of her minders.

**_You didn’t do this before_**, the woman notes.

_I didn’t have you both, before,_ Melara replies. When her guards eventually report to Lord Tywin of her antics, she is brought into his solar, cold blue eyes locking on her like cats on mice.

“You are not to climb, any longer.”

“Try and stop me,” Melara replies brazenly, even though she quakes inside. She has survived death and chill – she has climbed up the inside of a well and saved herself from a watery doom. She should be allowed to climb, when it’s a skill that has saved her life.

Lord Tywin snorts like a bull, full of rage. “You are my ward and my responsibility. Your savage behaviour will cease. I thought to raise your marriage prospects after your show of will – but if you do not stop on my word, I shall resume thinking you to be an arrogant little girl in need of _discipline_.”

“…it is not savage,” Melara whispers, after a long, drawn out moment of terror. She looks to her hands and forces her voice not to tremble. “It’s calming. I’m- _I’m_ in control. It is not savage, my lord. It is discipline itself.”

Silence.

Lord Tywin stares at her, then looks down at his papers, dismissing her. “An acceptable answer,” he says. “But if you injure yourself in these endeavours, you will not receive care from the maesters of Casterly Rock; you will go to those in Lannisport yourself and pay for it from your own pocket. Go.”

Her heart thuds so quickly, like a hummingbird’s. Melara lowers herself into a steep curtsey, splaying her thin orange skirt, stained with sand and sea-water.

“Thank-you, my lord.”

Melara flees the solar, a giddy laugh brewing in her chest and escaping merrily. It echoes through the golden halls of the Rock and she feels joyous.

The woman hums in amusement. **_That’s Tywin. Show a bit of steel…he’ll be watching you, now, Melara._**

Her joy fades, somewhat. _He will?_

**_He will_**, the woman repeats, as if she knows.

* * *

The next year, in year 277 of Aegon’s Conquest, Jaime Lannister is sent to squire for Lord Crakehall and quite suddenly, Cersei becomes the most vicious lion in the Rock.

“You don’t belong here,” she spits at Melara, voice low enough so their guards can’t hear. “You don’t deserve the privilege of living with the House Lannister.”

Melara glares at the girl, who has been goading her for weeks, now. “Lady Joanna took me in-”

“She shouldn’t have!” Cersei pushes Melara back towards the window, hissing. “You should have drowned!”

“Well, I didn’t!” Melara snaps, pushing her back. “And I never told anyone the truth, either! Not even Lord Tywin! You should be grateful! You’re wretched and craven, Cersei Lannister and you’ll never be queen!”

“Take that back,” Cersei growls, before they’re scratching at each other, pulling each other’s hair and screaming obscenities. Eventually, the guards have to separate them, bringing them to face the wrath of the nearest lord – Cersei’s uncle, Lord Kevin.

“What is going on, here?” he asks, glaring at them both. “For shame, you are not acting like yourselves, nor in the pride of House Lannister. What happened?”

“Melara called me craven and wretched!” Cersei snarls.

“And _she _said Lady Joanna never should have taken me in!” Melara fires back, watching Lord Kevin go still, his eyes turning on Cersei.

“Cersei,” he says, voice quiet and trembling. “You do not speak for the dead. You do not know your mother’s mind. You’ll apologise to each other immediately – I _will_ be talking to Lord Tywin of this.”

Kevin, of course, tells Tywin before dinner and when they seat themselves a dozen seats apart, the Lord of House Lannister orders them to sit opposite him, beside each other.

“I won’t,” Cersei glares impudently.

“You will, or you shall not go to Kings Landing with me,” Tywin glares right back at her. Melara seats herself down, as instructed, refusing to look at the girl capable of plain _murder_. “Lady Hetherspoon, you were taken in by my wife upon the deaths of your parents, as was right at the time. However, you are of an age to be betrothed or otherwise fostered.”

“Aren’t I being fostered here, my lord?” Melara asks, heart pounding at the thought of a betrothal.

“You are my ward. You are not my foster-child,” Lord Tywin disagrees. “Your behaviour of late is unfitting and while leniency may be allowed with my daughter, you shall have none. Fighting with my daughter – _publicly_.” He looks at her in disappointment. “In a moon’s turn, you shall be fostered elsewhere and your betrothal wrought.”

Dismay overtakes her, embarrassment a close second. Melara shrinks in her seat, able to see Cersei’s gleeful expression of victory. The entire dinner table whispers and Melara picks at her food that evening, shaking. None at Lord Tywin’s table are allowed to leave; she’s known that her whole life, always having sat there herself, except when the King visited.

The rest of the evening is spent in a daze. Where shall she be fostered? Who shall she marry?

**_It’s an interesting question_**, the man says. **_Many paths are ahead. Hopefully, Tywin Lannister’s ego shall narrow down the number._**

**_Hopefully_**, the woman snorts. **_Never rest your hopes on that monster. Melara, you need to ask him yourself._**

_Ask him what?_

The woman’s voice whispers closer and there’s a vein of excitement in her that Melara’s never heard before.

** _Ask to be fostered in the North._ **

“The North?” Melara says to herself, shocked. _It’s empty, though! No politics, no way to get to Cersei-_

**_No._** The man interrupts her thoughts, intrigued. **_That could work. Even if you don’t marry Northern, you’d be known there – trusted, even, after some time. Your loyalties would be twisted, eventually, but guiding you to the right end is our purpose._**

**_It could work_**, the woman says cheerily. **_Foster Northern, marry a Stark, even._**

Melara feels dizzy. The two spirits crowd her mind, pressing in on her from all sides with their planning. Cersei once called her scheming for fun and now, the way the Voices talk makes her think that Cersei’s words were incorrect. Compared to her spirits, so talkative and strong, Melara feels lost – stupid.

Why the Stark’s? Why Northerners? She saw the heir to House Stark at Prince Viserys’ tourney last year – he was brash, his accent harsher than rocks. Melara thinks his younger brother is of an age with her, but he is too high a match for her. She is a lowly ward, though she at least knows that Lord Tywin, like the Voices said, would narrow down her matches according to her station, here as _his_ ward.

Seating herself on a window-ledge, Melara leans up against the glass, breath clouding the pane. Out on the sea, she can see ships and boats of all sails and colours. What would it be like to sail off into the west, where none have returned from?

**_Cold and wet_**, the woman says. **_But there are mountains and trees that have orange leaves all year round. The lands are cold like the North – the people there kind. I made a home there._**

_How do you know?_ Melara asks, shocked. This is the first time she’s ever heard the spirits speak of themselves.

**_Because I sailed there, in another life_**, the woman says, wistful. **_This life, not so much. I dream of things that could have been, where my brother dreams of what has and what will._**

_That makes no sense,_ Melara argues.

**_It will eventually_**, the man promises her and that is the end to their conversation, as a maid fetches her with orders that she is to be confined to her rooms in the evenings. Shame-faced again, Melara returns to her quarters, confused to find the Lady Genna there, waiting for her.

“You’re showing spine, girl – don’t get so shocked at the sight of me.”

Lady Genna, a rail-thin woman with a stout jaw and endless amounts of Lannister-gold curls, has spoken to Melara before. Never though, has she sought her out on purpose, not alone – not without Cersei.

“You made a mistake, today. Fighting with Cersei was never going to get you anywhere good.”

Melara looks to her feet, wanting the world to swallow her whole. “I know, Lady Genna.”

“Kevan told me why you were fighting,” Lady Genna says, inviting her over to sit on Melara’s own chaise-lounge. Dutiful, Melara joins her, hands on her lap, long braids brushing her wrists. Soft scraping reaches her ears – a product of the seashells and beads that decorate her hair. “Joanna thought you were even more beautiful than her own daughter, you know.”

Melara’s eyes shift to meet Lady Genna’s in disbelief. “But I’m not!”

“Joanna was obsessed with you,” Lady Genna confides. “It’s your foreignness. She loved to feel your curly hair and stare at your brown baby face. It was exotic and lovely to her. It is to many.”

Melara touches the bare skin of her arm. _Exotic. Lovely._ The first word is familiar to her – but the second is strange and difficult to apply to herself. “I am not lovely,” she whispers, comparing herself to Cersei’s pale skin barely brushed with golden tan – _gold, everything Lannister is golden_ – and her dazzling green eyes. Cersei once compared her skin to dirt, her eyes to the mud in the pig’s pen.

“You will be lovely, wherever you go,” Lady Genna scoffs. “But it’s important to have a personality to match. If you do not think yourself beautiful, you never will be. Do you not trust my word? I, who call you beautiful on behalf of my dead sister and steal you away from Cersei in her free hours?”

“Steal?” Melara queries with the daintiest of frowns.

Lady Genna rolls her eyes. “You have been living in my niece’s shadow. I want to see who you are outside of it. I also want to make sure you can live up to expectations, should Tywin actually wish to sell your betrothal well. Until the day your fostering and betrothal are announced, I will spend each evening with you, to ensure your schooling is to Lannister standard.”

“Thank-you, Lady Genna,” says Melara, who can hardly believe the opportunity being afforded to her. _She knows who I might be promised to, surely! It must be a higher match than expected – oh, who might he be?_

**_I’m betting on a Crownlands Lord_**, the woman says, as eager to solve the mystery as Melara.

The man is not so sure. **_One of his strongest vassals, perhaps. She is practically his daughter._**

Lady Genna wastes no time, picking on Melara’s posture and her knowledge of Houses outside the Westerlands. She struggles with naming Valemen and Northmen, her knowledge of Dornish Houses is abysmal – but Melara can note all the many Crownlands, Riverlands and Stormlands Lords, along with many of their House words and crests.

Then, Lady Genna asks her about points of history and as Melara answers her many questions, she has the strangest feeling that she is not the one being tested, as Lady Genna’s focus shifts in degrees of caring.

**_You aren’t_**, says the man. **_The gaps in your knowledge are indicative of both your own and Cersei’s tutelage. This is as much a gift before your departure as it is an investigation._**

_Oh, _Melara thinks, her determination to impress wavering. Lady Genna seems to take her fallen shoulders as a sign.

“Enough for tonight, perhaps,” she says, eyeing her carefully before standing. Melara rises with her, curtseying. “Is there anything you wish to ask me, before I leave?”

**_The North_**, the woman jumps in.

Melara breathes in deep, her stomach swirling. Should she ask, like her spirits insist? The North is a cold, desolate place and she has no love for snow – what little she’s seen, at least. But she wants a stake in this – an opinion on her own life. Cersei took away her choices when she heard the prophecies, when she pushed her down a well and gladly sacrificed her for the dream of a crown.

“If it were my choice on where to go for my fostering,” Melara starts, pausing only briefly as Lady Genna raises an eyebrow early, “then I would request the North.”

“The _North?_” Lady Genna repeats, as if it is an alien word. “Why ever would you choose the North?”

“I would choose the North-” and Melara thinks fast, she thinks so very quickly, coming up with a plausible lie borne of being Cersei’s best friend and confidante, of being a bully and a scheming wretch of a child “-because we have no relations there. The North is strange and unfamiliar. When was the last time a major Northern House took a Southern bride?”

“You are talking of fostering, but you mention marriage,” Lady Genna says, almost cautioning her.

“…perhaps I do not want to be in a Southern marriage,” Melara suggests, confidence wavering.

“Wanting is not a liberty many women get to have, in life.” Melara watches the Lady Genna as her quiet words are left to drift through the room. She knows the story of her lady – wed to a Frey at twelve, birthing his child within a year. It was and still is a shocking tale, when most ladies wouldn’t have their first child till fifteen at the earliest. It isn’t safe.

**_Try telling that to powerful men_**, the woman says, almost too quiet. There’s a thrum of…_something_, before she says: **_Our sister was to have a child at thirteen._**

Had Melara been standing in front of anyone but a Lannister, she would have left the conversation, wanting to be alone so she can dig into the information the Voices have handed to her. The Voices are _siblings_ – they are _real people,_ who obviously belonged to a House. Melara wants to know if it were Great or not, if they are from the South or the North.

But Lady Genna is in front of her, watching her every move and while she fidgets once, hands moving behind her back to clench around the other, Melara stays still; stays present.

“I will mention this to Tywin, but don’t get your hopes up, Melara. When my brother wants something, there are few things that prevent him from getting it.”

“Thank-you, Lady Genna,” Melara says in an almost routine manner, curtseying once more. “I’ll ready myself for bed, now.”

“That you will – it’s late,” Lady Genna says, before departing without another word.

* * *

One month after her fight with Cersei, Melara is summoned to Lord Tywin’s solar.

It is a wide room, based in a tower with a balcony off to the side, where Melara knows Lord Tywin occasionally takes his dinner, judging from the cutlery placement and the flower arrangement. The ceilings are tall and they make Melara feel small as she settles in neatly opposite her lord, on the low-backed chair.

His hands set on the arms of his chair, Lord Tywin scrutinises her and Melara doesn’t know how to interpret the expression on his face when he starts speaking.

“I have arranged for you to be fostered in the North, as per your request. Your betrothal shall be put on hold until you are aged sixteen, unless an offer is given before that time that I approve of,” he instructs her, not realising how much his words relieve the spirits. Ignoring their clamouring is easy, when Lord Tywin attracts all her attention. Melara’s life is in his hands – she does not want to miss a single word.

“Which Northern House, my lord?”

“Karstark.” Tywin informs Melara, who for a moment is confounded. The Karstark’s are the Northern Lannister’s of Lannisport – a bastard branch of the Stark’s in the North. “I sent a letter to Lord Rickard Stark, who gave me a long list of his bannermen willing to foster you for a time. I chose the Karstark’s because of their historic closeness to the Stark’s. You will journey there promptly and without delay, as they are currently facing the aftermath of a storm. Another will not brew until you are either in Winterfell or Karhold itself.”

“Yes, my lord,” Melara bows her head.

“I have instructed my steward to arrange matters for you. The morn after next, you will be gone. Say your goodbyes tomorrow evening,” he says, still watching her, almost completely unblinking. “Lady Hetherspoon.”

“My lord?”

“…remember who raised you,” Lord Tywin says, eyes boring into hers. “And do not let the Northmen intimidate you. Casterly Rock is your home and I will not forget you.”

**_But you would leave her, if there was a war_**, the woman whispers in her head, less of a warning for Melara and more of a taunt towards Tywin. **_You’d forget about her entirely, because she does not have Lannister blood. If she were taken as a hostage, you’d disregard her – and that’s exactly why we have stolen her from you._**

Melara listens to her spirit and she listens to Lord Tywin. The woman speaks to Tywin as if she knows him, like he is an old friend or an old enemy – while Lord Tywin says things to her that might be true in some, but not all situations. Melara cares for Lord Tywin’s opinion.

But he was not the one to get her out of the well.

So, she bows her head in faux-agreement, thanking him for his kindness for keeping her as his ward, for arranging her fostering and claiming her as one of his own. They are platitudes – both expected of her and true. Melara sings the songs of a ward and when she escapes to her rooms, the Voices talk of the Karstark’s.

**_Rickard Karstark goes south with Ned_**, the man says, deliberately vague, knowing Melara can hear. It is a test, not unlike Lady Genna’s.

**_But his head…_** replies the woman, trailing off.

** _An inevitable situation, considering the circumstances. It’s good that Melara’s going to Karhold. We can manipulate those events from the past, without changing the future._ **

**_Maybe_**. The woman replies, not sounding as if she believes her brother. Melara does not know how to interpret their words, though a part of her thinks of what they have mentioned before, about dreaming the future and how they will guide her; and how _can_ they guide her, if they do not know what is to come?

_Are you from the future?_ She asks them, hearing their silence and their judgement. _Tell me,_ Melara asks, closing her eyes and leaning against the corner-post of her bed. It’s hard against her skin, grounding her like the floor beneath her feet and the tight, leather bracelet around her wrist.

**_We’re not from the future_**, the woman eventually says, her brother silent. **_We aren’t really here, Melara. Our souls are in a heart-tree in the North and we’re using my brother’s power to do two things at once: to hide and to change the past, from the future._**

**_We saved your life_**, the man says, solemn enough that he sounds disinterested. Melara has been listening to him for nearly a year now, though – she can hear the sadness chiming through, an undercurrent in a river of wisdom. **_And now, we’re trying to improve your role in the Game of Thrones. For that, we’re sorry._**

“Don’t be sorry,” Melara says, out loud. “You didn’t know me. Maybe I wouldn’t have played like you’re planning… You said something about Karstark’s head. You’re trying to stop an execution, but executions happen for a reason. How am I supposed to fix that?”

**_Manipulating you like this wasn’t a well thought out plan_**, the woman claims, amused.

_No,_ Melara agrees, _but you saved me. I owe you this, at least. How do we stop him from dying?_

**_By preventing a war – or mitigating its effects. The history book is blank from here on. Your role could be small and ultimately pointless_**, says the man, explaining it to her as concisely as he can. **_But if we can manage your life well, your presence could change things for the better._**

The woman says, **_and it can only get better_**.

“Who were you running from?”

At that, the Voices are silent. Melara, feeling antagonised, grips her bedpost tight and grinds her teeth. Why won’t they tell her? How is she supposed to help them if they do not tell her these things? Melara will always be grateful to them – always, _always_, her loyalty to them first, only after herself – but trust goes in both directions.

** _You want us to trust you._ **

_Yes,_ Melara admits, desperate and angry._ Why won’t you? I know I am surrounded by Lannister’s, but you are within my mind! You know what I will say before I say it._

**_But we have no control over your actions_**, the man claims, which Melara knows to be a lie.

_The woman took over my body in the well, when I was going to fall_.

For a long moment, there is quiet, before the woman confirms it. **_Yes, I did. But that was in exceptional circumstances. You couldn’t afford to fall again, not in front of Tywin._**

Melara’s heart pangs.

_Is it all about Lord Tywin, to you? How do you know him?_

** _I was his cupbearer._ **

The woman’s declaration is jarring enough that Melara’s anger disappears. A cupbearer? But- but _how?_ The woman in her head must be of Casterly Rock herself – though her accent is wrong, different.

The woman actually laughs at that. **_I was hiding – I am not a woman of the West. I stopped once at Lannisport, but I never stepped off the ship. I’d had enough of lions to last a lifetime. I respect Tywin, but I despise him, too._**

_Despise him? Whatever for?_ What could Lord Tywin ever have done to inspire such hate from a lowly cupbearer.

Said lowly cupbearer laughs hard and loud for a long, long time.


End file.
